Trust is a fragile token, and the last few years have left mine badly scuffed. I got to the point where I felt like nearly everyone I placed faith in let me down. I lost money, friends, and companions I held dear. Yet simultaneously, and in perfect contrast to this stream of misfortune, I met my wife, moved back to the States, and met my beautiful daughter.

Between running a startup, marathon training, and pretending I sleep, in‑person friendships slid to the bottom of the backlog. I've filled the gaps with digital counterparts: group chats, Farcaster, and the occasional doomscroll through the X For You feed. Virtual connection fills the void surprisingly well, but nothing beats the excitement of shaking hands with someone you've spoken to only via digital telepathy and realizing, oh, you are real.

Herein lies the reason why FarCon matters. Four days in Brooklyn's hipster enclave of Williamsburg felt less like a crypto conference and more like a nerd-centric Coachella, laden with dozens of side events and the shared belief that the next generation of social media shouldn't own our souls.

I spent three days meeting builders whose apps I love and who follow my own onchain experimentation. I was constantly surprised at how many folks I was already connected with, "Oh, you're that Nicky!" This level of intimacy is fleeting on a growing network, but for the moment, it felt like bottled lightning.

Farcaster has been my digital hometown for over a year, but for one long weekend, it received a physical zip code.

Crypto is still riddled with friction

Commercially unviable

While Farcaster is pushing the boundaries of social commerce, retail commerce is still a dumpster fire. Between the endless coffee lines and mandatory USDC payments, crypto in the real world creates more problems than it solves.

At one point, I spotted some merch I wanted to cop. I walked up and asked for it.
Clerk: "That'll be 50 USDC."
Me: "Can I just pay with cash?"

We shared a nervous laugh before he hit me with the fatal combo: USDC only, and Warplet doesn’t work.

So now I’m juggling wallets mid‑conversation. I send some Farcaster rewards to Rainbow, and then open the QR scanner. No dice. Turns out the QR was for my phone’s camera app, not the wallet itself. I switch apps. That finally opens Coinbase Wallet, where an e‑commerce‑style page loads, and I complete the transaction.

All of that for a shirt that says, "Touch Grass."

Ironic because crypto works fine until you take it outside.

Proof of Attendance... kek

Can we admit that POAPs are mostly vibes? No one has ever closed a deal because a VC saw a POAP from some random conference side-event. They’re the onchain equivalent of giving your email to a cashier, except instead of 15% off your next purchase, you get... nothing.

They don’t unlock anything. They don’t verify reputation. They’re sentimental JPEGs.

Until we truly abstract all of the "crypto" elements from these processes and start unifying platforms, wallets, and other elements across a shared standard, crypto will remain a microcosmic niche within nerd culture, at least in the real world.

Where crypto does work well, however, is online. That's where mini apps come in.

Mini Apps

This section is primarily for devs. TL;DR: Mini Apps are Farcaster’s growth engine. For devs, they’re a fast path to attention and revenue. For the network, they’re a bet on composable, socially native software.

Dan and Varun laid out Merkle’s north star during the opening keynote: get more funded wallet users doing meaningful things on Farcaster. The goal isn’t just engagement for engagement’s sake. It’s about unlocking distribution and monetization for the developers building on the protocol. Mini Apps will serve as the primary vehicle for this initiative.

Formerly known as v2 Frames, Mini Apps provide developers with a testbed for their ideas that abstract some of app development's most painful aspects, like authentication, wallet infra, and payments, all within the context of the social graph. With the Mini App SDK, developers can quickly prototype new app concepts to see if they gain traction and quickly monetize.

Dan's vision is clear: start with a Mini App and speedrun growth to a standalone product.

Unlike Channels, which never quite hit product-market fit, Mini Apps are seeing real traction. Speaking from experience, the SDK is dead simple, and onboarding users is almost too easy. Once someone interacts with your app, you can notify them about updates, drops, or offers. No email list required.

That momentum was visible everywhere at FarCon. Hundreds of Mini Apps live in the “store,” and dozens were launched during the Builder’s Day hackathon.

There are clear pain points and criticisms of Mini Apps, which Merkle is working to resolve. Chain agnosticism, easier prototyping, and more were addressed directly during the conference.

It seems prudent to familiarize yourself with this development pipeline now, even if you don't have an immediate idea to publish. Mini Apps are likely the future of Farcaster and will be a primary mechanism for achieving growth personally and as a network.

Microcosms, major moves

Growth is taking many forms as new personnel have come aboard to drive new initiatives. Ted's focus is onboarding content microcosms, such as the onslaught of journalists who recently joined the network, while other initiatives are happening on a grander scale. Most notably, the imminent release of the fully updated Coinbase Wallet.

To be clear, it’s hardly a wallet anymore. The beta version shown at FarCon is a full-blown Farcaster client, emphasizing visual media, audio, and video. Attendees who stuck around for Jesse’s talk were given early access. I was one of them. Here’s how that went:

1. Onboarding is broken

Not sugarcoating it, onboarding was brutal.

After three failed attempts to trigger the update flow, I finally made it into the new Coinbase Wallet only to be forced into registering a new basename (despite already having one) and creating a Smart Wallet, which promptly changed my primary address.

Connecting my Farcaster profile required bouncing between Coinbase Wallet and Warpcast like a pinball. Approvals, swipes, sign-ins. When it finally clicked together, I had a borked version of my identity with 1,500 fewer followers, a display name I didn’t choose, and a Warplet wallet I could no longer access.

Not a great first impression.

2. The feed is promising

On the flip side, the feed is actually good. Media rendering is smoother than Warpcast. Videos, images, and even Mini Apps feel crisp and native. It’s weirdly compelling to open what looks like a crypto wallet and find yourself scrolling a social feed. The mental model is shifting: this isn’t a wallet with social features but a social app that happens to hold your money.

3. Warpcast vs. CBW

Yes, I flexed a “Hello from Coinbase Wallet 👋” cast. And yes, I immediately went back to Warpcast to see who replied. For now, I still prefer the familiar purple dopamine drip. But that’s probably the point. Coinbase isn’t trying to poach users from Warpcast. They’re trying to onboard the next million. And if the beta is any indication, they’re getting closer to a version of crypto that looks and feels like any other mobile app.

Between niche communities finding traction and a Fortune 500 company shipping a Farcaster-native wallet, the network is clearly expanding. But smooth feeds and shiny apps only get us so far. If onboarding stays this rough, we’ll keep bottlenecking ourselves at the front door.

The social layer is the product

At FarCon, I saw what can happen when digitally-borne relationships turn into real-life connections, when PFPs turn into handshakes, and threads turn into conversations. Beneath it all lies a composable social graph, portable identity, and financial primitives designed not for speculation (necessarily), but to serve as public goods within an emerging network state.

It’s unapologetically crypto, and that’s the point. Farcaster isn’t trying to abstract away the blockchain. It’s trying to prove that crypto-native coordination can produce something better than rent-seeking platforms and hollow engagement loops.

Downstream of all that nerdiness is something simple but potent: a growing social layer. One that welcomes builders, artists, memelords, runners, parents... anyone with something to share. As new users join, they’ll reshape the dynamic in unpredictable ways, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

The rough edges are real. But what gives me conviction is the team’s willingness to tackle them head-on -- even to lean into the messiness at times. The coherence of the mission, combined with an evolving commitment to decentralization, is building something protocols rarely achieve. Cultural gravity.

Farcaster isn’t perfect. But it is principled. And in crypto, that’s worth more than any airdrop.